


Woe to Wickedness

by gardnerhill



Series: Torque [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Celts, Community: watsons_woes, Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Only an idiot king would destroy a man’s sword and leave his greatest weapon untouched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woe to Wickedness

**Author's Note:**

> For the JWP 2015 Prompt #31, _**Putting on a Show.** Canon is full of colourful characters, and we all know Holmes loves an audience for his deductions. Whether it's a grand gesture, breaking the fourth wall, or just the conclusion of a case in front of a crowd, make an audience part of today's entry._

Muirios had taken King Shanaghan’s golden torque off the dead man’s neck for his own, had had his rival’s first line of warriors beheaded, and snapped Seán’s short-sword in two before the manacled bard.  
  
“Leave it,” the new king said to his brother who was about to dash the small harp on the rocks next to the blade. “He can sing for me now. Or will he throttle me with the harpstrings in my sleep?” Muirion, Muirios’ brother and captain, laughed contemptuously with his shield-wall of warriors, and threw the little implement of wood and sheep-gut back at the lamed soldier-turned-scop.  
  
“Your wretched life is spared, pig. I am your king now.”  
  
Seán bowed his head to the very ground both to make obeisance to his new lord and to hide his bared teeth.  
  
***  
  
Shanaghan’s people now toiled for Muirios in the field or marched to battle for him, their lives much as they had been before in Lundun. By the time their children took up swords and looms the wise and fierce warrior-king would be forgotten in favour of Muirios and his deeds. So was Muirios’ belief.  
  
Seán sang the work-songs that made the harvest-labour easier, the holy songs of the old gods to teach the children, the ancient songs of the heroes that came before, the comical songs that set the whole court of Muirios roaring and pelting him with pig-bones.  
  
But that year the harvest-song Seán sang was one the Lunduners had not heard before.  
  
_Heavy my heart, hard the telling,_  
_Final this fierce battle foundered;_  
_A serpent has slain Lundun’s shield,_  
_Long-limbed lion, lord Shanaghan,_  
_Warrior and wisest ever I wot –_  
_Stung by a spider. Harp of mine, speak._  
_Mighty his mind, always his memory:_  
_King Shanaghan, quick-witted and kind –_  
_Woe to wickedness that wears his torque!_  
  
The tune was an easy one, often used for long-versed hero ballads, the kind that becomes knit into memory like the links of chain-mail. A tune whose verses changed repeatedly to strop the dullness of work into the sharpness of ease:  
  
_Splash of blood, a study in scarlet,_  
_Clever the king who caught the slayer!_  
  
_Shanaghan struck the poison snake,_  
_Back to bite the bitter foe!_  
  
_A Roman, red-haired as a son of Regan –_  
_Shanaghan saw the red-hairs were stopped._  
  
So easy, and such a repeatable pattern. So easy to copy and mimic and to add.  
  
Soon other Lunduners began trading their own verses with each other across the fields or among the flocks, in and around sacred or heroic songs:

 

 _Shanaghan harried the Hound of Hell_  
_Who guarded the gold. No king so good!_  
  
_Men of the Valley he vanquished; victory._  
_Great is the glory of Shanaghan gone!_  
  
_Goods and gold to the poor he gave;_  
_Widows and waifs Shanaghan well-fed._  
  
Bolder still were the fellows who mockingly chanted other verses in and among the Shanaghan couplets:  
  
_Muirios, mighty in only his mind,_  
_Scuttling spider; dare we step on it?_  
  
_Timid the torque-thief, tremulous Muirios,_  
_Wishing for women that would not laugh._  
  
_Selfish and small-handed, stingy Muirios,_  
_Gobbles the gold as our bellies gape._  
  
_Strong Shanaghan by Muirios slain –_  
_Forever his fame, the spider forgotten!_  
  
***  
  
The inevitable happened; Muirios, home from yet another war, heard a lad toiling in the royal stables and singing one of the verses. During his savage whipping he howled the names of others who sang the tune – all of Lundun by this time.  All of it of course eventually led back to the person who’d taught them the song.  
  
Muirios made sure the whole of Lundun was present when he executed the bard. Seán watched Captain Muirion throw his harp into the same fire that heated the irons they turned on him.  
  
“Finally, the pig sings a song to my liking,” said the king of the screams. The people of Lundun clutched their children and wept.  
  
The last song of Seán the bard before they took his tongue was a shriek: _Woe to wickedness that wears his torque!_  
  
Afterward Muirios ordered the blinded, tongueless, fingerless man hung from the road-post by his elbows to starve and be eaten by the ravens.  
  
But the king’s men had neglected Seán’s ears. So the dying man – unable to play, to sing – heard the very men guarding him singing his catch, with even more new verses:  
  
_Shanaghan, fearless, fought the foeman –_  
_Brave the bard who fought beside!_  
  
_Loyal that lion, lamed, in his vanguard –_  
_Seán_ _to Shanagahn, brother souls!_  
  
_Strong was Shanaghan, king unsurpassed –_  
_Woe to wickedness that wears his torque!_  
  
He heard travelers from Lundun as they passed his gibbet, and his own tune faded into the distance as they carried King Shanaghan and his unsurpassed bard into immortality – far beyond the grasp of Muirios. And from here, also, he could hear more verses springing up like weeds, faint across the fields. His vengeance for his fallen king was complete.  
  
_How many new lines will those shepherds compose before I die?_  
  
The guards shook at the horrific cackle that came from their prisoner – and even more at the one word he could form without his tongue:  
  
“Woe…”


End file.
